President of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said new manager Ozzie Guillen "was a major force" in the Zambrano trade, reports Clark Spencer of The Miami Herald (on Twitter). Guillen and Zambrano are friends and countrymen.

“We really liked him when we saw him at that workout [in November],” said Beinfest to Mike Bernardino of The Sun Sentinel, referring to Yoenis Cespedes. “It’s something we’re continuing to monitor, and we’ll kind of leave it there. But we were very impressed. Obviously, as a Cuban we think it would be an interesting fit in this market and on this ballclub. It’s something we continue to monitor and stay up on.”

Bernardino says teams will submit a sealed bid for Cespedes to his agent Adam Katz through MLB, then have an opportunity to increase their offers. It's unclear if this is an official process, or just how Katz will attempt to find a suitor for the outfielder.

Jorge Ebro of El Nuevo Herald says (on Twitter) that the Marlins will withdraw from the Cespedes derby if his price tag exceeds $60MM.

That is what Boras should do with Fielder. Have all the interested teams submit a sealed bid to MLB and then if someone that is lower wants to increase their bid, they would have that option. That would be an awesome way to decide where all the type A free agents end up, without all the games agents like to play. If the highest bid is 3 years and 15M a season for a guy like Fielder, Boras accepts or his client sits at home that year, after a window to increase the bids expires. That would eliminate most of the rumours though. lol.

I think the reason Guillen likes Zambrano so much was due to the fact that his best games of the year were usually against the White Sox in the crosstown classic. Those two co-existing is gonna be very interesting to watch!